The Atlantic Provinces Economic Council expects an increase of about 11 per cent in economic investment in Newfoundland and Labrador this year, spurred mainly by an increase in population. For the first time in decades, the average age of the population held steady instead of going up.
APEC, in St. John’s for their “Building Atlantic Canada” conference, delivered a glowing forecast for the entire Atlantic region.
The Atlantic provinces’ population grew by about 178,000 over the last five or six years but that has put a lot of pressure on housing inventory.
Patrick Brannon, chief researcher at APEC, says Nova Scotia has found ways to speed up housing construction. He says St. John’s alone added about 5,000 people last year and will do the same this year. Nova Scotia developed a housing task force to speed up construction and now they have hundreds of projects in the works, says Brannon. “There are things that we can do to accelerate housing projects.”
Investment in oil and gas is down but it’s up in all other sectors including mining, mainly because of the search for gold. Exploration investment is $240 million this year instead of the average $90 million it usually is.
